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Re: Piano Samples Used For Live Performance

Many of the libraries for Giga work great live.

I\'ve had great luck, in different settings, with Trachtman-C, Post Grandioso Stienway-D, The White Piano, and Bardstown Bosendorfer.

The pianos which are set further back on the soundstage, i.e., the ones with built-in ambient or distand mic\'ing, tend not to work as well. Of the ones I mentioned, the Post Steinway is about as \"distant\" as is practical in my experience. Otherwise, the sound tends not to push into the space.

Re: Piano Samples Used For Live Performance

I use the Close Miked Instrument (The library comes with 3 four gig sized instruments, Close Miked, Ambient and Player Perspective) from our library and it sounds great live.

Patrick Warren who is a world renowned producer and musician also uses our library live.

When I\'m running alot of VSTIS with the piano I use one of the economy presets and everything runs very smoothly using either Halion2 or Kontakt, it\'s great to be able to have high quality piano sound live + the other great VSTIs like B4 from N.I.

Re: Piano Samples Used For Live Performance

I\'ve used the EastWest Bosendorfer a number of times in the pit and its been great. A lovely clear, clean sound that has been responsive to any necessary processing and has blended nicely with a variety of acoustic and electronic instruments. Suprising maybe, as I\'ve never found it so easy to mix with other instruments in recordings.

Re: Piano Samples Used For Live Performance

Originally posted by Bruce A. Richardson: Many of the libraries for Giga work great live.

I\'ve had great luck, in different settings, with Trachtman-C, Post Grandioso Stienway-D, The White Piano, and Bardstown Bosendorfer.

The pianos which are set further back on the soundstage, i.e., the ones with built-in ambient or distand mic\'ing, tend not to work as well. Of the ones I mentioned, the Post Steinway is about as \"distant\" as is practical in my experience. Otherwise, the sound tends not to push into the space.

<font size=\"2\" face=\"Verdana, Arial\">Bardstown Bosendorfer......how well does that compare to the PMI Bosendorfer? I need to get myself a good Bosendorfer sample for Kontakt, but I\'m not sure which has a better sound. (MP3 demos don\'t tell the whole story).

Re: Piano Samples Used For Live Performance

We need some input from the original poster. What kind of playing? For instance, the piano Olivier mentions above, the EW Steinway B, actually doesn\'t work out for me very well in live performance with a rhythm section, because it\'s got too much mud in the low-mids. It\'s either eating up the entire mix, or not audible. I like it in some settings, but as a rhythm section instrument, it is definitely not a lead contender. So, we could be talking about apples and oranges until we know what playing setting we\'re dealing with.

Re: Piano Samples Used For Live Performance

Originally posted by CadeBryant: </font><blockquote><font size=\"1\" face=\"Verdana, Arial\">quote:</font><hr /><font size=\"2\" face=\"Verdana, Arial\">Originally posted by Bruce A. Richardson: Many of the libraries for Giga work great live.

I\'ve had great luck, in different settings, with Trachtman-C, Post Grandioso Stienway-D, The White Piano, and Bardstown Bosendorfer.

The pianos which are set further back on the soundstage, i.e., the ones with built-in ambient or distand mic\'ing, tend not to work as well. Of the ones I mentioned, the Post Steinway is about as \"distant\" as is practical in my experience. Otherwise, the sound tends not to push into the space.

<font size=\"2\" face=\"Verdana, Arial\">Bardstown Bosendorfer......how well does that compare to the PMI Bosendorfer? I need to get myself a good Bosendorfer sample for Kontakt, but I\'m not sure which has a better sound. (MP3 demos don\'t tell the whole story). </font><hr /></blockquote><font size=\"2\" face=\"Verdana, Arial\">The Bardstown Bosie is a lot drier, and punchier. It was recorded in an ambient space, but a large enough one, and closely enough mic\'ec that you don\'t get a lot of room. The PMI Bosie is almost polar opposite...the room was live and is very prominent even on the close-mic\'ed position.

That\'s probably the aspect you\'ll want to most closely analyze against your end use.

Re: Piano Samples Used For Live Performance

The Bardstown Bosie is a lot drier, and punchier. It was recorded in an ambient space, but a large enough one, and closely enough mic\'ec that you don\'t get a lot of room. The PMI Bosie is almost polar opposite...the room was live and is very prominent even on the close-mic\'ed position.

That\'s probably the aspect you\'ll want to most closely analyze against your end use.

<font size=\"2\" face=\"Verdana, Arial\">So it\'s a question of whether I desire a dry sound or one that\'s more ambient?

For my music, I often need both dry and ambient pianos. If I got the Bardstown, would it be easy to make it sound ambient via a good-quality reverb plug-in?

Re: Piano Samples Used For Live Performance

Don\'t forget to eq when mixing. Usually, anything, no matter how fat it may be, will fit if eq-ed. Just remove low end with a shallow HP filter. Usually, the fundamentals are pronounced well by other instruments if present. And even if they aren\'t, the brain fills them in. It\'s surprising how bad a filtered piano with only overtones left can sound, when the same piano in a mix, blends in just perfectly. Quite simple to.

Re: Piano Samples Used For Live Performance

Ambience and EQ have been mentioned, and I would think that lots of velocity layers are important as well. Whenever I read a post from somebody who has played a Scarbee electric piano, the Vintaudio Yamaha or the White Grand, people talk about how great it feels compared to the shallower piano libs. I don\'t know that I can always hear the subtlety in the demos, but I believe that the responsiveness of more layers enhances the player\'s experience, and, hence, the art of the performance.

I don\'t own a \"deep\" piano lib yet, but I will. I\'ve just started taking formal lessons. (I\'m practicing my Hannon, developing my sight reading with lots of simple scores and working on Betthoven\'s Sonata in C minor - Pathétique.) After I get GS3, I\'ll go for one of the 24-bit mega-layer libs. I want to really feel the dynamics as I play - especially when playing Beethoven.

Unless I\'m mixing up a PM I got a while ago, PurePiano is doing a piece with two pianos and eight hands. For that application having two different pianos would be ideal. Maybe either the C7 or the White alongside a slightly darker piano. I like the idea of mixing different tones, rather than matching the instruments. (Think two Les Pauls or two Strats in a rock band - yuk.)

A two piano arrangement shouldn\'t need much EQ, but I\'d lean towards the dry side and add ambience to taste. When you can, let the room generate the ambience for you.

Mega-layers, 24-bits, GigaPulse resonance models. I can\'t wait to get GS3 and a nice deep piano lib to go with it.